Jim Hagedorn is ramping up his campaign to challenge U.S. Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minnesota, to represent Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District.

Hagedorn is touring southern Minnesota to tout his campaign advantages as he vies for the Republican nomination to run against Walz.

“People like that we’re more aggressive than the other campaigns,” Hagedorn said Friday. Hagedorn was in Austin Friday as part of a media tour.

Hagedorn, a former U.S. Treasury Department employee who worked for former U.S. Rep. Arlan Stangeland in the 1980s, has run his campaign on taking Walz to task for supporting things like the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, as well as measures Hagedorn sees as increasing government overreach.

Hagedorn’s positions include repealing the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, agricultural reform and decreasing government regulations overall to try to boost small businesses. Though Obamacare regulations took effect at the beginning of the year, Hagedorn believes the law can still be repealed in favor of free market competition among health care providers and insurance companies.

“It’s so fundamentally flawed and complex that it needs to go away and start from scratch,” he said.

In addition, he said he has heard many farmers call for decreased Environmental Protection Agency regulations during his visits in rural areas. Hagedorn would like to see Congress reform the EPA by rewriting federal mandates instead of allowing EPA officials to set regulations.

Hagedorn is vying for the GOP nomination against State Rep. Mike Benson, R-Rochester and Aaron Miller of Byron at the 1st District Republican Confention in April.